The Irish Famine

Gaunt cheeked, spindle-limbed This exclamation mark of life-sized famine sculptures Frozen in time, pull you up to a full stop On their way to the coffin ships on Dublin’s Quay. They carry dying children in their arms, Themselves half dead, dogged by a skeletal cur That waits to devour the stragglers The comma of its tail wags in anticipation They have left behind their blighted, rotting crops Where the smoking turf of their rooves Still blackens the sky, like a question-mark to their God To face the horrors of the coffin ships Typhus, cholera, lice And the fierce Atlantic with its teeth of water Exacting a heavy tithe from those who cross it ‘To be sure’ the guide from the good ship Jeanie Johnston Says in passing, ‘Doesn’t your heart go out To those poor souls fleeing Africa today, And not a country keen to take them on? ’